Ai Weiwei forced to close down his private live webcam

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A Times screengrab from the Ai Weiwei webcams the artist installed in his home

Leo LewisBeijing

Published at 12:01AM, April 6 2012

Ai Weiwei, China’s most famous dissident artist, has been ordered to shut down
a live webcam website he launched just a few days ago to satirise Beijing’s
oppressive surveillance regime and mark the anniversary of his secret
detention.

The authorities offered Mr Ai no explanation for the order, but yesterday it
appeared that he had complied: the round-the-clock, Big Brother-style
broadcasting of his everyday life ceased abruptly.

“The cameras have been shut down. Byebye to all the voyeurs,” Mr Ai wrote on
Twitter.

He had previously warned that the website would probably shut down, but that
doing so would